Once again, Lend a Hand helped in myriad ways

Tuesday

Feb 4, 2014 at 2:24 AMFeb 4, 2014 at 6:34 AM

South Shore social service agencies helped thousands of people with the $117,000 that was donated during The Patriot Ledger's annual holiday charity campaign. The Lend a Hand campaign has raised $2.5 million in 16 years.

Lane Lambert The Patriot Ledger @llambert_ledger

PLYMOUTH – A timely rent payment kept a Hull man and his three children from getting evicted from their apartment.An elderly Plymouth woman got a new recliner and bed after losing her old ones in an apartment complex fire.

Hundreds of South Shore families enjoyed Christmas dinners and gifts they wouldn’t have had.

Those are among the ways three social service agencies used donations from The Patriot Ledger’s Lend a Hand holiday charity donation program.

The Ledger’s annual campaign collected more than $117,000 during the 2013 season. Since 1998, Lend a Hand has distributed more than $2.5 million to needy families, couples and individuals through Quincy Community Action Programs, the South Shore Community Action Council and South Shore Mental Health.

“It’s godsend money,” South Shore Community Action Council Executive Director Patricia Daly said. “We don’t have this kind of flexibility with our other funding.”

This winter the Plymouth-based council used $11,400 of its Lend a Hand money for what Daly called “emergency help” – nine past-due rents, one overdue mortgage payment, and three overdue utility bills. She said all those payments helped keep those families in their homes.

That was one-third of the approximately $34,000 the council got from Lend a Hand. Daly said the council decided to spend the other two-thirds – about $23,000 – for extra food assistance so hundreds of clients wouldn’t go hungry during the Christmas season.

She said each of the 13 emergency cases involved a different need. The Hull man who got help with his rent had just taken custody of his three children after his wife became severely depressed. The sudden loss of her income left him with a harsh choice: food or rent.

At South Shore Mental Health in Quincy, Executive Director Harry Shulman said the agency used most of the $39,000 it received from Lend a Hand to buy gift cards for food, clothing and home furnishings for 398 clients.

“We will have something under the tree,” one mom said in a thank-you note to the agency. “You have given us a nice Christmas dinner.”

Shulman said many of his agency’s clients report having an increasingly difficult time paying for groceries or utilities. Lend a Hand money helps ease that stress, “so it may have a significant impact on their mental health beyond the hour we see them (for counseling),” he said.

Reach Lane Lambert at llambert@ledger.com. Follow him on Twitter @LLambert_Ledger.